Lethal Weapon 3 is a big, dumb, noisy, comic strip of a movie that begins and ends in flames.

Poison Ivy isn't that much of a film. But part of its charm is that it doesn't pretend to be. It is, however, a great showcase for Drew Barrymore, as bad-news jailbait. [26 Jun 1992, p.29]

Red blood, white sands and a blue Corvette are the real stars of "White Sands," the slick new Roger Donaldson thriller that's more about its plot convolutions than its characters, and more about its visuals than either. [24 Apr 1992, p.85]

Although expertly directed by Bill Duke, Deep Cover becomes the cinematic equivalent of a drive-by shooting, posing as community uplift. [15 Apr 1992, p.91]

What keeps the film going, and helps it keep its comic tone, is the constant threat of cataclysm - and the deadpan Buster Keaton charm of the ever-responsive Pinon as he combats the giant Rube Goldberg meat-grinder that the house, in effect, is. [17 Apr 1992]

White Men Can't Jump isn't perfect. But most of the time it's a lot of fun. Its funky moves are going to put more smiles on more faces than any regular season or tournament basketball TV throws at you. [27 Mar 1992, p.25]

The Cutting Edge plays like the kind of date movie written by a computer, and not a very smart one...It makes shaved ice look deep. [27 March 1992, p.29]

Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct is a slick, trashy, blatantly manipulative thriller that you won't stop watching once you start. [20 Mar 1992, p.25]

Onstage, Noises Off was a riot. On film, it's in the salvage business, snatching a few vagrant laughs from a reworking that otherwise sinks like a failed souffle, reminding us yet again that farce onstage and farce on film are two fundamentally different constructs. [20 March 1992, p.30]

My Cousin Vinny is a cement-handed courtroom comedy that somehow lands on its feet when it should fall on its face. In fact, it does fall on its face, more than once. There isn't a single thing in it that you don't know isn't coming. But the chemistry between Joe Pesci as a wiseguy-out-of-water and Marisa Tomei as his shrewd and adorable Brooklyn girlfriend, adrift in the Alabama legal system, keeps it worth watching. [13 Mar 1992, p.28]

Mostly plays like an artificial stupidity experiment. Zappy visuals aside, it's essentially a reactionary take on science, stemming from the movies' traditional belief that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a lot of knowledge is worse. Think of it as Faust Goes to the Lab, with an ambitious doc serving as Mephistopheles. [6 Mar 1992, p.30]

When the action shifts inside the ropes, which happens often, "Gladiator" pulses with energy, and Marshall shines. Boxing purists may wince at the freewheeling fisticuffs - there is enough kicking, eye-gouging and head-butting going on to make viewers wonder why anyone bothered with a referee - but the electricity in these scenes is undeniable. [6 March 1992, p.31]

While Memoirs of an Invisible Man has its moments - like so many Chevy Chase movies - you spend an awful lot of time waiting between laughs. [28 Feb 1992, p.28]

It's not a perfect film. In fact, it's in many ways a messy film. But if it's disjointed, so are its characters' lives. And they're put onscreen with a veracity and an emotional authenticity that draw you into their tight little barnyard world. [17 Jul 1992, p.31]

With what doubtless are the best intentions, the film wants to do several things, and does. The trouble is that it doesn't do any of them very well. [07 Feb 1992, p.32]

If you get dizzy watching Final Analysis, it may be because it's such a "Vertigo" wannabe. But director Phil Joanou is no Hitchcock, and Kim Basinger, its star, is no Kim Novak, even though Joanou poses and lights her in a critical lighthouse scene the way Hitchcock posed and lit Novak in that bell tower in "Vertigo." The big problem with "Final Analysis," though, is that Richard Gere's pivotal expert shrink is pretty easy to fool. Not until late in the film does he literally run to a library to learn about one of Freud's classic case histories. You have to suspend a ton of disbelief to buy the assumptions you have to make about him, starting with his gullibility. [7 Feb 1992, p.29]

In its sweet, slightly melancholy, gently humorous way, it fills the screen with the freshest, most winning love story we've seen in ages. [14 Feb 1992, p.39]

If you don't get hooked on the storytelling in Fried Green Tomatoes, you'll surely be charmed by its five terrific actresses. Fried Green Tomatoes can't match the dramatic focus and rich texture of Rambling Rose, it's far more appealingly nuanced than Steel Magnolias - and with actresses like Tandy, Masterson, Bates, Parker and Tyson on the job, it's downright irresistible. [10 Jan 1992, p.73]

Juice is a film about choices. The right ones. The tragically wrong ones. There will be comparisons to Matty Rich's brilliant "Straight Out of Brooklyn," but Dickerson's effort is more richly textured, more grounded in an ordinary kid's point of view. And Dickerson's dogged determination to film from that perspective has resulted in a film rich in the right lingo, the right clothes, the right attitudes. [17 Jan 1992, p.67]

Zanuck draws impressive performances from her actors. Gregg Allman is surprisingly strong as a slyly menacing dealer, and Max Perlich, as an unpredictable stoolie, makes his scenes pop. The down-and-dirty Rush puts a lot of punch into enervation. [10 Jan 1992, p.77]

There are two entertaining small characters in Freejack - Amanda Plummer as a gun-toting nun and Johansen as Estevez's exploitive pal. As the lead, Estevez is appealing, if bland. He takes his future shocks in stride. [18 Jan 1982, p.12]

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is the "Fatal Attraction" of child care, but it's too rigged and anti-climactic to send real shivers up your spine. Which is not to say there aren't satisfying moments along the way, mostly watching Rebecca DeMornay camp it up as the avenging nanny out to destroy young mother Annabella Sciorra. [10 Jan 1992, p.74]

Guncrazy, a film more about limits than about bullets, is a pretty compelling little pistols 'n' potency outing, and Barrymore's sprung teen is what makes it almost mandatory viewing. In her chopped blond hair, creamy skin, strong chin and perfectly curved jawline, she's Lolita with the safety catch off. [05 Feb 1993, p.30]

For a while, Light Sleeper hangs together promisingly. But when Dafoe's character meets old flame Dana Delaney, the plot spirals into preposterousness involving a sinister Eurotrash client, and the film also gets away from Schrader, who isn't a deft enough director to conceal or minimize the flaws in his script. [15 Sep 1992, p.71]

Cronenberg hasn't so much filmed Naked Lunch as tamed it, turned it into entertainment, with oozy rubber bugs, big and little, that look left over from David Lynch's movie of "Dune," or the intergalactic dive from "Star Wars." [10 Jan 1992]

"Daughters" has a gorgeous, overwhelming sense of place. It is almost startlingly beautiful, blessed with deep fiery hues and a poetic sensibility. It is a film made stronger by its belief in itself, and it challenges its audience to believe also.... But because "Daughters" is so gloriously textured, its rewards are many. [20 Mar 1992, p.30]

Generous in its emotions as well as its visuals, it makes its healing energies real because it takes the trouble to make its characters' pain believable. It's a big, bold, slightly old-fashioned film carried by its heartfelt conviction, by Barbra Streisand's painstaking direction and self-effacing acting, and by Nick Nolte. [25 Dec 1991, p.47]

Mostly it's Paredes' imperious - then surprisingly generous - high-handedness that carries High Heels. [20 Dec 1991]